The federal government has exactly 10 federal holidays: New Year's Day, MLK Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Government controlled sites are closed on those days. That means contractors can't work at such a site on those days. Rather than requiring their employees to work elsewhere, contractor companies often just concede that their employees can get a holiday too, and most of them even make it paid time off.
Some companies observe different holidays, such as by adding Christmas Eve and the day after Thanksgiving, and removing Columbus Day.
There is no such thing as public holidays in the US. Some days are bank holidays. Some days are school holidays. Some days are federal holidays. But there is no law that requires any employer to give all of its nonessential employees paid time off on any particular day. The only sort-of-exception is that an employer can't prevent someone from voting on Election Day, but that does not have to be paid leave.
Wal-Mart, for instance, has only 5 paid holidays: Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. (Note that Easter is always on a Sunday, a time when many people already have a day off from work.) And if you get holiday bonus pay for working on those days, your hours are rumored to be cut afterward to compensate.
Some companies are also generous enough to allow 80 additional hours of paid time off every year, to be used as either sick leave or vacation days.
To me as a US English speaker this meant public holidays, since we normally call the other type of holiday "vacation". He probably gets at least 10-15 of those as well.
logfromblammo|10 years ago
Some companies observe different holidays, such as by adding Christmas Eve and the day after Thanksgiving, and removing Columbus Day.
There is no such thing as public holidays in the US. Some days are bank holidays. Some days are school holidays. Some days are federal holidays. But there is no law that requires any employer to give all of its nonessential employees paid time off on any particular day. The only sort-of-exception is that an employer can't prevent someone from voting on Election Day, but that does not have to be paid leave.
Wal-Mart, for instance, has only 5 paid holidays: Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. (Note that Easter is always on a Sunday, a time when many people already have a day off from work.) And if you get holiday bonus pay for working on those days, your hours are rumored to be cut afterward to compensate.
Some companies are also generous enough to allow 80 additional hours of paid time off every year, to be used as either sick leave or vacation days.
goldbrick|10 years ago